@riskybryzness Instagram kept telling me to buy an overpriced Woobles kit but instead I checked out websites and videos. It didn’t work. Then I bought the Woobles book. Didn’t work. I finally bought an overpriced Woobles kit and quickly learned to crochet in the round. So it was fairly easy to learn. My next project has straight crocheting so I need to learn that. My book has links to videos. Fingers crossed.
@riskybryzness@sammydog01 I taught myself from books. And am left-handed, so mentally reversed everything. It’s not hard at all, just one of those things that’s more about paying a specific type of attention that not everyone enjoys. And counting!
@mossygreen@riskybryzness Those woobles kits include left handed instructions and videos. I couldn’t even pick up right handed- I’m impressed you could learn left-handed.
@riskybryzness@sammydog01 I second the support for woobles. The videos really help and their special yarn is really nice for beginners. I started off with a woobles kit and bought a few more when they were on sale. I tried another cheap kit I found and it sucks compared to woobles. I feel semi-compatent now and have been trying other patterns and when I get to a part in not sure about I go back and find the woobles video explaining it.
@metaphore@riskybryzness I look things up in the book all the time- after seeing the video I mainly need a reminder. Plus I made a dinosaur and birthday hat- it has patterns. (No I don’t get a commission.)
@sammydog01 You see they are doing an advent calendar? I’m kinda hoping it sells out before I have a chance to get one because I’m sure it’s gonna be more than I should spend.
@metaphore@sammydog01 I purchased the lion about a month ago. Lions are my nieces fav animal so I thought I would make her one for Christmas. Flew theough steps one and two. So easy! Then step three was like, ok read the pattern…good luck. Now I have to go back and pay attention to how to read the pattern in the first two steps. Not a big deal but I have to have a minute to sit and focus. So for now it is collecting dust. Im thinking maybe Oct/Nov when it gets.cild and my list of chores cuts in half (because no outside stuff)
But an advent calendar you say…that could be interesting…did anyone find it?
@sammydog01@tinamarie1974 It launches tomorrow at noon eastern. I’m trying to brace myself for the price since I’m sure it’s gonna be spendy based on the recent bundles they’ve had.
@metaphore@tinamarie1974 Advent calendar is $125 and comes with a full size wooble, 14 accessory kits, and stuff. I refreshed like it was a bag of crap.
Kayaking, gardening, hiking… I sound active when I write it like that… but mostly I’m stuck behind a computer even in my downtime. Used to have a bunch of aquariums.
I’ve done some resin work and made some concrete statues, but not often enough to really count as a real hobby.
@Thumperchick yes, I can find some to post. I think I posted the Sasquatch statue that I painted (didn’t make) on the Birthday Irk photos thread… my own statues I’ve molded have been small and unimpressive so far.
My resin work started as making game pieces for a custom board game (made enough tokens for four copies of the game so far) although I’ve made a few coasters to test techniques too… nothing overly impressive.
I’m thinking of making my daughters electric Ukuleles for Xmas and the bodies would be resin. Hopefully that would be more impressive… lol. Of course I always have lots of plans that I never follow through on.
I have no hobbies at the moment, or I have too many - and none of them get any useful amount of attention. The rest of my life has swallowed my “spare time”, at the urging of the ADD that keeps me from ever getting anything important done.
I just picked up needle punch a couple of months ago. The obsessive amount of yarn I have bought is insane. It’s a lot of fun though, and super easy to do and get into.
@mossygreen technically, no… I used airheads and melted them for the dragon and sword… not my best idea, but it worked … I am trying to use what I have on hand for any projects I do lately. I could not think of a brand of hard candy that had white, so airheads it was
My main hobby is riding bicycle. When I started it only cost $500 because it was a long time ago and the bike was on clearance for 60% off. These days I ride bike with wheels that cost more than that first bike before the discount.
I also have my cactus and if I can ever get my house reorganized I can start making music.
@yakkoTDI I need to get back out on my bikes. I have several, ranging from a mid-'80s steel-frame Trek roadie with what is presumed to be the last serial number issued for that model, to an Electra Townie and a cheap tandem. I really need to retrofit the roadie with brifters.
@yakkoTDI I’m a cyclist too. I bought a cheap bike at the beginning of COVID to ride around my neighborhood, and things sort of took off from there. Now I’m up to 4 bikes, and I did my first gravel race this past June.
My hobbies involve our 2 dogs, a pond full of innumerable koi, cutting and splitting firewood, reading- a variety of fiction, sewing- mostly to repair or modify, fixing things and trying to improve things around our house, cars, and yard/property.
I have absolutely no artistic or creative talent or skills.
@Thumperchick
Tough call because I have quite a few. “Holy Ghost” and “Bloody Genius” by John Sanford were both [as usual regarding his writing] excellent, enthralling, and kept both myself and SWMBO guessing as to who the culprits were.
This site lists his books this series [a spin-off from his Lucas Davenport/ ‘Prey’ series] in order: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/john-sandford/virgil-flowers/
I also highly recommend that series.
One of the things that I appreciate about his books is that they adhere to a strict chronology. Unlike James Patterson for example.
I also read Stephen King’s “Billy Summers” and really liked it. For a non-horror fiction, it was really well written.
@PhysAssist I’ve been reading various romance/romcom stuff and I don’t think I have one that stood out. I tend to read to let my brain shut off and they fit the bill.
But once in a while, I want to read something that grabs me.
I just realized there’s another book/series that I’d recommend.
I happened to look at my “waiting for SWMBO” book shelf, which is filled with books I’ve already finished and have put aside and recommended for her to read] and realized that the most recent Lee Child “Jack Reacher” book is right there.
It’s the only one I have read, but now I’m going to go back and start reading the series from the beginning, since that one was so good.
Similarly, the “Jack Reacher” TV series on Amazon was excellent, starring the blond Viking-like actor, who played the quarterback in the comedy series: “Blue Mountain State”. It, and not the Tom Cruise movies is what made me pick up the book.
BTW, if you’re buying hard copy books [vs e-books], I highly recommend Better World Books, for prices, selection, and eco-friendly shipping. Oh, and the money goes to support literacy for underprivileged kids as I recall: https://www.betterworldbooks.com/
@PhysAssist@Thumperchick
Harlan Coben is a great author too. Deal Breaker, the first book in the Myron Bolitar series is the best book I’ve read in the past year.
@mossygreen
SWMBO has called me a hoarder a time or two, but I’m really a recycle/reuse/salvage engineer.
I’m amassing back stock for my [possible] post-retirement fall back ‘career’.
I’m also a pack rat for anything hardware-related because I have never been sorry for holding onto old fixtures or fittings, except the day after I got rid of it.
@mossygreen Sounds like my wife - she is a quilter and she has made many very nice quilts. But when it comes to buying fabric, the gozinta rate is about double the gozouta rate.
I used to be REALLY into brewing. I brewed 200 gallons the year before my daughter was born. After that, not so much, although she was an award winning brewer at the age of four. I milled my own grain, grew my own hops, and built my water from the ground up. Brewing is equal parts cooking, math and science. Wish I had more time to do it more frequently.
@capnjb I’ve read that it’s really involved and has a steep learning curve. Great hobby, though!
As my kid gets bigger, I find that her independence is bringing some time back for me to do stuff I enjoy that I just didn’t have the time/energy for when she was younger.
@Thumperchick Brewing can be as simple or as complicated as you want. You can buy cans of hopped, malt extract, add some water, boil it, and toss in some yeast and in a week or two, you will have beer. I would say, however, the two biggest things you can do to make better beer are switch to all grain (so, not extract) and manage proper fermentation temperatures. Warm ferments don’t make great beer. After that you can get as geeky as you want. The effort vs results curve is pretty steep, but if you’ve got OCD like me it’s pretty fun. I always liked starting with RO water and building it to the style of the beer I was brewing. The salts listed on the recipe above will get you pretty close to the water profile in London for a good British ESB
@capnjb I experimented making some wines a few years ago.
Blackberry wine and blueberry wines from bushes on our property(turned out good) Lemon wine (which is surprisingly good… very mild taste). Orange wine (wasn’t very good) and apple wine (which tasted a bit rough).
I planted some Elderberries last autumn so I could make some elderberry wine this year but harvest wasn’t really enough for wine this year… maybe next year they’ll be productive enough. Still waiting for my chokecherries to get big enough to fruit. Deer keep eating them down before they fruit.
@capnjb@OnionSoup I made a batch of plum wine which aged for almost 20 years before it was drinkable. I’d actually forgotten it in the back of a closet. One day, I ran across it, pulled a sample, and took the last half of the pull across the street to a neighbor who had a better bottling setup. Two hours later, we had split the bottles and I was cleaning up the carboy. It came out as an absolutely excellent tawny port. For the first five years, it had been nasty.
@capnjb@werehatrack my Dad used to make wine from Damson plums when I was young. I had tried it back then but don’t recall what it tasted like. My parents sure liked it though! . I think his only aged for a few years though. He used to be more adventurous than I am though, he would make distilled alcohol too… I’m afraid I would poison myself or go blind if I tried.
@capnjb I’ve been home brewing for about 30 years now. I am part of a local informal home brewing club that gets together to make a large batch (~50 gallons) and split shares among us. We used to do it twice a year (National Home Brew Day and Teach Your Buddy To Brew Day) but Covid caused us to skip a few, then the guy who has all the equipment for big batches retired and now spends winters in Az., so lately we have only been getting together to brew once a year in May. He has a nice home built setup in his barn:
He also built a temperature controlled fermentation and storage room with a couple of SS conical fermenters.
I have a more modest all-grain brewing setup at home (5-7 gal batches), but my consumption is much less these days, so I don’t brew all that often any more.
@capnjb I’ve also tried my hand at cider making.
I built a grinder from a garbage disposal:
Built a press from some scrap lumber and a scissors jack:
The apples from our Mountain Rose tree made some nice colored cider. After fermentation, I back-sweetened it a bit (with frozen AJ concentrate), kegged and carbonated it. It was quite popular while it lasted.
@macromeh Very cool. I have a colleague who is a horse person (that came out weird) and they ride on a nearby farm that has a huge apple orchard. Every year (except this past one) she hooks me up with 100 pounds of ‘seconds’ for $20. 20 cents a pound for honey crisp apples is pretty great. It also takes me about a year to forget how much I hate juicing 100 pounds of apples
Any fellow potters? I started a little less than a year ago and aside from the expense, I do love it. I only do wheel throwing—hand building is too fiddly.
@jakeline Hello fellow potter! I started a little over a year ago and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I work in tech, so there’s nothing better than playing in mud after staring at a screen all day.
@Thumperchick That might help, right?! I’m terrible about actually taking pictures of my finished work, so some of this isn’t fired yet.
The best part of being a potter is that Christmas is handled. The worst part is the lead time. This is before the first firing. The two different clays will fire to different colors (a light cream and a dark gray), and it looks quite nice when I’ve glazed work with marbled clay like some of these have-.
These already got gifted to friends, and I love how the colors turned out
I decided my brother needed a little booze jug for some weird reason. I’m proud of this because it fits a speed pourer perfectly.
I was playing with making vases, and for some reason, I wanted little round chunky dudes. I’m not sure how I’m going to glaze these yet.
@sleuth Wow, that glaze is GORGEOUS! The shape is really nice too–I love working with sharp angles in something so squishy and round as clay can tend to be.
@capnjb I really love the trimming stage of pottery, and I’ve thought that wood turning would suit me. But there are more pottery studios than woodworking studios in my city, so I won’t be defecting to the lathe side
@jakeline I’m still trying to learn patience when turning wood. My ADHD wants me to take short cuts, but after a few pieces have left the lathe and put dents in the furnace, I’ve learned to slow down. This is one of my first bowls. Buying exotic wood is fun (and can get expensive) but dropping words like spalted and burled into casual conversation is kind of fun And this bowl was a black limba blank. Fun new words!
I did some wood turning way back in middle school woodshop class.
A bad throw while horsing around inside the house left my mom’s wall clock broken. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a simple round clock from a department store, but I felt bad. So I made her a new clock of similar shape out of some walnut from the shop’s stockroom. I even made the numbers from some brass sheet stock. As you might imagine, she (a typical mom) was thrilled when I gave it to her.
I still have it, but after 50+ years the works, um, don’t.
@capnjb@werehatrack I’m sure they are, now. 50 years ago, my uncle drove me all over Portland trying to find a suitable battery clock movement. Finally found one at a clock-and-watch shop (remember those? ) with a sympathetic proprietor. He also graciously supplied the hands from his spare parts bin.
@jakeline I took a pottery class in college. I loved it!! It would totally be something I’d love to do someday, but I need a bigger house in order to take on anymore hobbies, lol!
Gardening/yard work, though this year all that kind of went by the wayside pending my hip replacement.
Canning/preserves/jams/cooking.
Woodworking/cabinetry when I have time.
Our biggest/favorite one is still probably travel. I just looked at our calendar and we have eight trips planned in the next 16 months. Three of them out of the country & each of those is 2-4 weeks… making up for lost time while we took care of Mom I guess!
My primary hobby is the '71 Challenger in the garage, collecting parts for it, and doing what little bits of work I can on it with no space and little time. But its my plan that it will become my occupation once we retire and move to a better place with more room.
A bit of gardening, limited by space and HOA but still fun.
Over the years I have had many hobbies: Needlepoint, cross stitch, hook rugs, etc. Now my hobbies are jigsaw puzzles (which I barely find time for) and reading which I do daily. My window treatment and soft furnishings business is my main activity.
Assorted shades and draperies:
Now I make pillows and ornaments from my client’s needlepoint and rugs:
Here’s the front of what was supposed to be last year’s card (will be this year’s, I really should get busy). I was going to make it a snowglobe with sand, but I realized it would be a nightmare with the different levels.
@lisaviolet saw the curio2…seriously considering it. Would love to hear what you think of it. Never could being myself to justify one of the cameo4s, but probably could justify the curio2!!
@mikibell It got here yesterday. It’s big. And heavy. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, though, I’m waiting on a cart to put it on since there’s not enough room at my craft table to leave it.
I can hardly wait until they start releasing the tools. The heat pen looks pretty nice. No wires like on the Quill.
Current hobby is just sitting around playing video games. Probably should get back into some of the more active hobbies like disc golf that have been put aside for awhile now. Nice thing about the games is that the kids are finally old enough to appreciate them too. At the moment playing through FF7 again for the first time since college while oldest and youngest are watching and commentating. Still in the first half of the game so they have no idea of the trauma yet to come…
Now if money and time were no issue, I’d pick up glassblowing in a heartbeat. Took a couple classes in grad school and loved it back then.
What’s a hobby? I think I used to have some of those. Are you still a lot of embroidery work by hand no machines and I loved it I’ve done beating the same thing I’ve beaded clothes back when we used to do SCA costuming and stuff for science fiction conventions. My ex did The Sewing and I did the handwork. These days it’s reading and Casual computer games and packing to move is that a hobby?
@Cerridwyn Oh my gosh! I like embroidery, I did make once during college one of our subject. I made embroidery for our table napkin. Furthermore, I would like to do it again.
@Cerridwyn@dearestsammy Now you have a place to post photos! I count reading and computer games as hobbies but packing seems like a chore to me. Unless it’s a video game.
@dearestsammy@sammydog01 2 years ago I left my dream apartment for what should have been a dream City for a new job. I quit that job 15 months later because of ethical issues with the vice president of the company. I did some temporary work until my father passed away and I’ve been working on his stuff pretty much off and on ever since and decided to retire. I’m moving back to the exact same dream apartment I moved out of and away from the Dream City that really actually sucked. So packing it sort of a hobby over the last two years. And unpacking. Hopefully until I can no longer take care of myself I will never move again. Of course I said that before but I should have enough money to be comfortable for the remainder of my existence on this Earth.
For me, it’s probably easier to ask what *isn’t * (or hasn’t been) my hobby. I hoard so many craft supplies that when Michael’s runs out of something, they call me first.
Currently, I do leather working. I love it. I started out not wanting to pay $100 for a Traveler’s notebook because it’s literally a rectangle of leather and stretchy cord. “I can easily make that for far, far less”, I said to my naive self.
And now…here I sit…with at least 40 sides of leather, multiple tools, hardware and supplies (to the tune of at least 5-7k) in my basement. And generally not much time to practice unfortunately. Someday, right?
But leather is just the latest of a looooooong history of crafting/hobby obsessions, lol! All of which I either still dabble in, or plan to do when my kids are done school and out of the house. I need a bigger house though…
Some, but not all, of those hobbies include doing cakes, decorative painting, wool felting, painting dolls (semi expensive), and amateur photography (very expensive! ).
My husband can’t complain about all of my crap because his hobby is cars and restoring old Mustangs. In the department of ‘hobby stuff in every corner’, we are a perfect match!!
A few pics of me what ADD looks like in hyper-focus craft form.
@k4evryng@sammydog01 used to do a little bit of leather work back when I did sca. For a while we had a side business that where we made combat sorts. And you do all the fine leather work for the handles cuz we made them look nice not just Rattan and duct tape which is what they used back then. Ours were very popular and we charged a lot of money for them and we got paid for it and custom leather handles the whole thing. And I’ll go back to the needlework because it was easier
My hobby costs way more than it should, between my sewing machine and serger, plus fabric and notions.
Sewing isn’t really something that saves money anymore unless you only sew with fabric you’re upcycling and/or found on clearance.
It doesn’t help that I have a custom fabric addiction that has led to several totes of fabric waiting to be turned into something my kid will wear.
I cycle through hobbies pretty quickly but right now I’m crocheting little things.
I’m working on a houseplant right now- I just need to sew on the leaves.
My next projects will be from a book of monsters.
@sammydog01 “I’m working on a houseplant right now- I just need to sew on the leaves.”
If you wait long enough, they’ll grow leaves themselves…
@sammydog01 I’ve been looking at starting crocheting–was it easy to pick up?
@sammydog01 That’s adorable!
@riskybryzness Instagram kept telling me to buy an overpriced Woobles kit but instead I checked out websites and videos. It didn’t work. Then I bought the Woobles book. Didn’t work. I finally bought an overpriced Woobles kit and quickly learned to crochet in the round. So it was fairly easy to learn. My next project has straight crocheting so I need to learn that. My book has links to videos. Fingers crossed.
@riskybryzness @sammydog01 I taught myself from books. And am left-handed, so mentally reversed everything. It’s not hard at all, just one of those things that’s more about paying a specific type of attention that not everyone enjoys. And counting!
@mossygreen @riskybryzness Those woobles kits include left handed instructions and videos. I couldn’t even pick up right handed- I’m impressed you could learn left-handed.
@riskybryzness @sammydog01 Oh, I didn’t say I was good.
I mean, thank you. The only projects I’ve ever finished are caps.
@sammydog01 Okay you’ve sold me on the woobles. I’ve had them in my cart for ages.
@riskybryzness I did the tiger. Show us the result?
@riskybryzness @sammydog01 I second the support for woobles. The videos really help and their special yarn is really nice for beginners. I started off with a woobles kit and bought a few more when they were on sale. I tried another cheap kit I found and it sucks compared to woobles. I feel semi-compatent now and have been trying other patterns and when I get to a part in not sure about I go back and find the woobles video explaining it.
@metaphore @riskybryzness I look things up in the book all the time- after seeing the video I mainly need a reminder. Plus I made a dinosaur and birthday hat- it has patterns. (No I don’t get a commission.)
@sammydog01 You see they are doing an advent calendar? I’m kinda hoping it sells out before I have a chance to get one because I’m sure it’s gonna be more than I should spend.
@metaphore No way, I want one. Have they gone on sale yet? It’s comes up not found.
Found the email. I’ll check it out at noon tomorrow. I probably shouldn’t because I have so many pattern books and yarn.
@sammydog01 Get one so I don’t have to and can just experience it vicariously through you
@metaphore @sammydog01 I purchased the lion about a month ago. Lions are my nieces fav animal so I thought I would make her one for Christmas. Flew theough steps one and two. So easy! Then step three was like, ok read the pattern…good luck. Now I have to go back and pay attention to how to read the pattern in the first two steps. Not a big deal but I have to have a minute to sit and focus. So for now it is collecting dust. Im thinking maybe Oct/Nov when it gets.cild and my list of chores cuts in half (because no outside stuff)
But an advent calendar you say…that could be interesting…did anyone find it?
@sammydog01 @tinamarie1974 It launches tomorrow at noon eastern. I’m trying to brace myself for the price since I’m sure it’s gonna be spendy based on the recent bundles they’ve had.
@metaphore @tinamarie1974 When I search for it a price of $125 shows but the link isn’t live.
@metaphore @tinamarie1974 Advent calendar is $125 and comes with a full size wooble, 14 accessory kits, and stuff. I refreshed like it was a bag of crap.
@sammydog01 I’m still tempted to get one of the 2nd batch. I probably shouldn’t though.
I finished my plant (pattern from Knotmonsters potted plants book). It looked better in the book but I’m happy.
I think I’ll do Cthulhu next.
@sammydog01 That’s adorable!
Mehing counts as a hobby doesn’t it?
Kayaking, gardening, hiking… I sound active when I write it like that… but mostly I’m stuck behind a computer even in my downtime. Used to have a bunch of aquariums.
I’ve done some resin work and made some concrete statues, but not often enough to really count as a real hobby.
@OnionSoup do you have pics of the stuff you’ve made?
@Thumperchick yes, I can find some to post. I think I posted the Sasquatch statue that I painted (didn’t make) on the Birthday Irk photos thread… my own statues I’ve molded have been small and unimpressive so far.
My resin work started as making game pieces for a custom board game (made enough tokens for four copies of the game so far) although I’ve made a few coasters to test techniques too… nothing overly impressive.
I’m thinking of making my daughters electric Ukuleles for Xmas and the bodies would be resin. Hopefully that would be more impressive… lol. Of course I always have lots of plans that I never follow through on.
I have no hobbies at the moment, or I have too many - and none of them get any useful amount of attention. The rest of my life has swallowed my “spare time”, at the urging of the ADD that keeps me from ever getting anything important done.
I just picked up needle punch a couple of months ago. The obsessive amount of yarn I have bought is insane. It’s a lot of fun though, and super easy to do and get into.
@riskybryzness Pics!?
@Thumperchick
Just a few - worm on a string and the pillsbury halloween cookies sugar cookies.
@riskybryzness love it! That kitty cookie is adorable.
@riskybryzness @Thumperchick They are all beautiful but oh! that worm on a string!
@mossygreen @Thumperchick Honestly my favorite thing to make. It’s such a fast hobby to pick up and see results with too. 10/10.
I have too many hobbies… some of the things I have made recently…
@mikibell I love love LOVE the ghost earrings!
@mikibell ooppsss… i posted twice…thought I deleted this one…
@Kyeh I am doing an exchange for Halloween and the person wanted scary with a hint of cute… I hope these are that…
My first time making earrings.
@mikibell They look perfect to me! Not very scary, but spooky and cute for sure.
@mikibell Is that sword hard candy?
@mossygreen technically, no… I used airheads and melted them for the dragon and sword… not my best idea, but it worked … I am trying to use what I have on hand for any projects I do lately. I could not think of a brand of hard candy that had white, so airheads it was
@mikibell those all look awesome! Do you have an embroidery machine?
POPSOCKETS! ROAD ROCKETS! SONNY CROCKETT! AWESOME!
@Thumperchick I have lots of embroidery machines… most of these were done on the 6 needle machine…
@mikibell how cool! I love how versatile those machines are.
Cakes for my great nephew and niece
For a recent fundraiser…
@mikibell Your stuff is incredible - it all looks professional!
My main hobby is riding bicycle. When I started it only cost $500 because it was a long time ago and the bike was on clearance for 60% off. These days I ride bike with wheels that cost more than that first bike before the discount.
I also have my cactus and if I can ever get my house reorganized I can start making music.
@yakkoTDI I need to get back out on my bikes. I have several, ranging from a mid-'80s steel-frame Trek roadie with what is presumed to be the last serial number issued for that model, to an Electra Townie and a cheap tandem. I really need to retrofit the roadie with brifters.
@werehatrack My road bike is from 2001 and the brifters were the most amazing upgrade over my early '90s road bike.
@yakkoTDI I’m a cyclist too. I bought a cheap bike at the beginning of COVID to ride around my neighborhood, and things sort of took off from there. Now I’m up to 4 bikes, and I did my first gravel race this past June.
@yakkoTDI road cycling, or off-road/mountain?
@NullPointer 4? Halfway to my herd size.
@Thumperchick Off road is my preference but I do both.
My hobbies involve our 2 dogs, a pond full of innumerable koi, cutting and splitting firewood, reading- a variety of fiction, sewing- mostly to repair or modify, fixing things and trying to improve things around our house, cars, and yard/property.
I have absolutely no artistic or creative talent or skills.
Spending more money than necessary on Meh.
@PhysAssist What’s the best book you’ve read this year?
Sewing is artistic, even when you’re just doing repairs.
@Thumperchick
Tough call because I have quite a few. “Holy Ghost” and “Bloody Genius” by John Sanford were both [as usual regarding his writing] excellent, enthralling, and kept both myself and SWMBO guessing as to who the culprits were.
This site lists his books this series [a spin-off from his Lucas Davenport/ ‘Prey’ series] in order:
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/john-sandford/virgil-flowers/
I also highly recommend that series.
One of the things that I appreciate about his books is that they adhere to a strict chronology. Unlike James Patterson for example.
I also read Stephen King’s “Billy Summers” and really liked it. For a non-horror fiction, it was really well written.
@PhysAssist cool! I added him to my kindle list. Thanks!
@Thumperchick
Great!
Have you read anything good recently?
@PhysAssist I’ve been reading various romance/romcom stuff and I don’t think I have one that stood out. I tend to read to let my brain shut off and they fit the bill.
But once in a while, I want to read something that grabs me.
@Thumperchick
Thanks, maybe I’ll pass…
@Thumperchick
Hi again,
I just realized there’s another book/series that I’d recommend.
I happened to look at my “waiting for SWMBO” book shelf, which is filled with books I’ve already finished and have put aside and recommended for her to read] and realized that the most recent Lee Child “Jack Reacher” book is right there.
It’s the only one I have read, but now I’m going to go back and start reading the series from the beginning, since that one was so good.
Similarly, the “Jack Reacher” TV series on Amazon was excellent, starring the blond Viking-like actor, who played the quarterback in the comedy series: “Blue Mountain State”. It, and not the Tom Cruise movies is what made me pick up the book.
BTW, if you’re buying hard copy books [vs e-books], I highly recommend Better World Books, for prices, selection, and eco-friendly shipping. Oh, and the money goes to support literacy for underprivileged kids as I recall:
https://www.betterworldbooks.com/
@PhysAssist @Thumperchick
Harlan Coben is a great author too. Deal Breaker, the first book in the Myron Bolitar series is the best book I’ve read in the past year.
@callow
Thanks for the recommendation!
I’ll give it a look.
@callow @PhysAssist thanks for the suggestions!
@callow @Thumperchick de nada!
I buy things and don’t use them. Super into hoarding craft supplies. Big plans.
@mossygreen
Oh boy - sounds like me.
@mossygreen I should include craft hoarding in my hobbies, I’m great at it.
@mossygreen
SWMBO has called me a hoarder a time or two, but I’m really a recycle/reuse/salvage engineer.
I’m amassing back stock for my [possible] post-retirement fall back ‘career’.
I’m also a pack rat for anything hardware-related because I have never been sorry for holding onto old fixtures or fittings, except the day after I got rid of it.
@mossygreen Sounds like my wife - she is a quilter and she has made many very nice quilts. But when it comes to buying fabric, the gozinta rate is about double the gozouta rate.
@mossygreen The Japanese have a word for this when it is just books; tsundoku.
@mossygreen I was having a bad day and passed the craft store. Now I have pretty yarn and am happier.
Little bit of 3D printing
Little bit of screen printing
Little bit of EVA foamsmithing
Little bit of online trolling
Not necessarily good at any of them
@Ignorant Sounds like Lou Bega.
@Kyeh
@Ignorant @Kyeh Now that song is stuck in my head…
@Kyeh @Thumperchick success!
I collect earbuds, powerbanks and dust.
@heartny Oh yeah, dust is great.
@heartny but are they working earbuds?
@Thumperchick They work, they just don’t sound very good.
I used to be REALLY into brewing. I brewed 200 gallons the year before my daughter was born. After that, not so much, although she was an award winning brewer at the age of four. I milled my own grain, grew my own hops, and built my water from the ground up. Brewing is equal parts cooking, math and science. Wish I had more time to do it more frequently.
@capnjb I’ve read that it’s really involved and has a steep learning curve. Great hobby, though!
As my kid gets bigger, I find that her independence is bringing some time back for me to do stuff I enjoy that I just didn’t have the time/energy for when she was younger.
@Thumperchick Brewing can be as simple or as complicated as you want. You can buy cans of hopped, malt extract, add some water, boil it, and toss in some yeast and in a week or two, you will have beer. I would say, however, the two biggest things you can do to make better beer are switch to all grain (so, not extract) and manage proper fermentation temperatures. Warm ferments don’t make great beer. After that you can get as geeky as you want. The effort vs results curve is pretty steep, but if you’ve got OCD like me it’s pretty fun. I always liked starting with RO water and building it to the style of the beer I was brewing. The salts listed on the recipe above will get you pretty close to the water profile in London for a good British ESB
@capnjb I experimented making some wines a few years ago.
Blackberry wine and blueberry wines from bushes on our property(turned out good) Lemon wine (which is surprisingly good… very mild taste). Orange wine (wasn’t very good) and apple wine (which tasted a bit rough).
I planted some Elderberries last autumn so I could make some elderberry wine this year but harvest wasn’t really enough for wine this year… maybe next year they’ll be productive enough. Still waiting for my chokecherries to get big enough to fruit. Deer keep eating them down before they fruit.
@capnjb
I have nearly everything I would need to re-start my homebrewing hobby, except for time and the energy to overcome my own inertia.
@capnjb @OnionSoup I made a batch of plum wine which aged for almost 20 years before it was drinkable. I’d actually forgotten it in the back of a closet. One day, I ran across it, pulled a sample, and took the last half of the pull across the street to a neighbor who had a better bottling setup. Two hours later, we had split the bottles and I was cleaning up the carboy. It came out as an absolutely excellent tawny port. For the first five years, it had been nasty.
@capnjb @werehatrack my Dad used to make wine from Damson plums when I was young. I had tried it back then but don’t recall what it tasted like. My parents sure liked it though!
. I think his only aged for a few years though. He used to be more adventurous than I am though, he would make distilled alcohol too… I’m afraid I would poison myself or go blind if I tried.
@capnjb I’ve been home brewing for about 30 years now. I am part of a local informal home brewing club that gets together to make a large batch (~50 gallons) and split shares among us. We used to do it twice a year (National Home Brew Day and Teach Your Buddy To Brew Day) but Covid caused us to skip a few, then the guy who has all the equipment for big batches retired and now spends winters in Az., so lately we have only been getting together to brew once a year in May. He has a nice home built setup in his barn:
He also built a temperature controlled fermentation and storage room with a couple of SS conical fermenters.
I have a more modest all-grain brewing setup at home (5-7 gal batches), but my consumption is much less these days, so I don’t brew all that often any more.
@capnjb I’ve also tried my hand at cider making.
I built a grinder from a garbage disposal:
Built a press from some scrap lumber and a scissors jack:
The apples from our Mountain Rose tree made some nice colored cider. After fermentation, I back-sweetened it a bit (with frozen AJ concentrate), kegged and carbonated it. It was quite popular while it lasted.
@macromeh Very cool. I have a colleague who is a horse person (that came out weird) and they ride on a nearby farm that has a huge apple orchard. Every year (except this past one) she hooks me up with 100 pounds of ‘seconds’ for $20. 20 cents a pound for honey crisp apples is pretty great. It also takes me about a year to forget how much I hate juicing 100 pounds of apples
@capnjb @macromeh That’s cool!
@capnjb @Thumperchick
@macromeh What a brilliant set-up! The cider looks luscious.
Any fellow potters? I started a little less than a year ago and aside from the expense, I do love it. I only do wheel throwing—hand building is too fiddly.
@jakeline Harry or Colonel?
edit - I actually do wood work on a lathe, which is kind of similar, but horizontal. And there is lots to clean up
@jakeline Do you have pics of stuff you’ve made?
@jakeline Hello fellow potter! I started a little over a year ago and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I work in tech, so there’s nothing better than playing in mud after staring at a screen all day.
Here’s a recent mug of mine!
@jakeline @sleuth
Nicely done!
@sleuth love that!
@Thumperchick That might help, right?! I’m terrible about actually taking pictures of my finished work, so some of this isn’t fired yet.
The best part of being a potter is that Christmas is handled. The worst part is the lead time. This is before the first firing. The two different clays will fire to different colors (a light cream and a dark gray), and it looks quite nice when I’ve glazed work with marbled clay like some of these have-.
These already got gifted to friends, and I love how the colors turned out
I decided my brother needed a little booze jug for some weird reason. I’m proud of this because it fits a speed pourer perfectly.
I was playing with making vases, and for some reason, I wanted little round chunky dudes. I’m not sure how I’m going to glaze these yet.
@sleuth Wow, that glaze is GORGEOUS! The shape is really nice too–I love working with sharp angles in something so squishy and round as clay can tend to be.
@capnjb I really love the trimming stage of pottery, and I’ve thought that wood turning would suit me. But there are more pottery studios than woodworking studios in my city, so I won’t be defecting to the lathe side
@jakeline That all looks fantastic!
I got to try making a small vase once and it was really fun. Great hobby!
@jakeline I’m still trying to learn patience when turning wood. My ADHD wants me to take short cuts, but after a few pieces have left the lathe and put dents in the furnace, I’ve learned to slow down. This is one of my first bowls. Buying exotic wood is fun (and can get expensive) but dropping words like spalted and burled into casual conversation is kind of fun
And this bowl was a black limba blank. Fun new words! 
How it started as a blank:
@capnjb @jakeline watching wood-turning videos makes my brain happy. Your bowl turned out great.
@jakeline @Thumperchick Heh… my daughter’s first comment was ‘That will a lot more pistachios than your last bowl’. So, I guess that’s progress
@capnjb @jakeline @Thumperchick Sigh. I have a small electric kiln, and a lathe as part of a Shopsmith, and the time to use neither of them.
@capnjb Very nice!
I did some wood turning way back in middle school woodshop class.
A bad throw while horsing around inside the house left my mom’s wall clock broken. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a simple round clock from a department store, but I felt bad. So I made her a new clock of similar shape out of some walnut from the shop’s stockroom. I even made the numbers from some brass sheet stock. As you might imagine, she (a typical mom) was thrilled when I gave it to her.
I still have it, but after 50+ years the works, um, don’t.
@jakeline @sleuth I wish there were “love” options rather than stars. Sooo pretty
@capnjb @macromeh Battery-powered clock movements are easy to come by, and could easily put that face back in service.
@capnjb @werehatrack I’m sure they are, now. 50 years ago, my uncle drove me all over Portland trying to find a suitable battery clock movement. Finally found one at a clock-and-watch shop (remember those?
) with a sympathetic proprietor. He also graciously supplied the hands from his spare parts bin.
@jakeline I took a pottery class in college. I loved it!! It would totally be something I’d love to do someday, but I need a bigger house in order to take on anymore hobbies, lol!
Do you sell your items? I love hand made mugs!
@jakeline @k4evryng I have a tiny wheel from Amazon and make tiny crappy vases out of air dry clay. You might have room for that.
I forgot to mention! I also cross-stitch. Currently working on an inappropriate word with flowers around it.
@Thumperchick I have a friend who just did one that said “I am a fucking delight”
@sammydog01 Love that. I made a pixellated rainbow one that just says, “fuck.” It was a labor of love.
@Thumperchick I have the pattern for this one but I haven’t tried to stitch it.
@Thumperchick @werehatrack do it
Gardening/yard work, though this year all that kind of went by the wayside pending my hip replacement.
Canning/preserves/jams/cooking.
Woodworking/cabinetry when I have time.
Our biggest/favorite one is still probably travel. I just looked at our calendar and we have eight trips planned in the next 16 months. Three of them out of the country & each of those is 2-4 weeks… making up for lost time while we took care of Mom I guess!
My primary hobby is the '71 Challenger in the garage, collecting parts for it, and doing what little bits of work I can on it with no space and little time. But its my plan that it will become my occupation once we retire and move to a better place with more room.
A bit of gardening, limited by space and HOA but still fun.
Over the years I have had many hobbies: Needlepoint, cross stitch, hook rugs, etc. Now my hobbies are jigsaw puzzles (which I barely find time for) and reading which I do daily. My window treatment and soft furnishings business is my main activity.
Assorted shades and draperies:
Now I make pillows and ornaments from my client’s needlepoint and rugs:
@callow your kid’s stuff is so cute! Good idea to make stuff with their art.
@Thumperchick Those are all for adult clients
@callow Oh, I misread. Still super cute!
Papercrafting. Crochet. 3D printing. Reading. Setting up audio/video stuff.
Still need to finish the cards I started for Christmas 2022. lol
I made some coaster holders with my 3D printer.
Did anyone see this? I ordered one.
@lisaviolet Is your papercraft quilling?
I’d love to see pics of any of your makes.
@Thumperchick Not yet.
I have the supplies, though, does that count?
Here’s the front of what was supposed to be last year’s card (will be this year’s, I really should get busy). I was going to make it a snowglobe with sand, but I realized it would be a nightmare with the different levels.
@Thumperchick No photo?
@lisaviolet that’s adorable.
@Thumperchick Thank you!
@lisaviolet saw the curio2…seriously considering it. Would love to hear what you think of it. Never could being myself to justify one of the cameo4s, but probably could justify the curio2!!
@mikibell It got here yesterday. It’s big. And heavy. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, though, I’m waiting on a cart to put it on since there’s not enough room at my craft table to leave it.
I can hardly wait until they start releasing the tools. The heat pen looks pretty nice. No wires like on the Quill.
Current hobby is just sitting around playing video games. Probably should get back into some of the more active hobbies like disc golf that have been put aside for awhile now. Nice thing about the games is that the kids are finally old enough to appreciate them too. At the moment playing through FF7 again for the first time since college while oldest and youngest are watching and commentating. Still in the first half of the game so they have no idea of the trauma yet to come…
Now if money and time were no issue, I’d pick up glassblowing in a heartbeat. Took a couple classes in grad school and loved it back then.
What’s a hobby? I think I used to have some of those. Are you still a lot of embroidery work by hand no machines and I loved it I’ve done beating the same thing I’ve beaded clothes back when we used to do SCA costuming and stuff for science fiction conventions. My ex did The Sewing and I did the handwork. These days it’s reading and Casual computer games and packing to move is that a hobby?
@Cerridwyn Oh my gosh! I like embroidery, I did make once during college one of our subject. I made embroidery for our table napkin. Furthermore, I would like to do it again.
@Cerridwyn @dearestsammy Now you have a place to post photos! I count reading and computer games as hobbies but packing seems like a chore to me. Unless it’s a video game.
@dearestsammy @sammydog01 2 years ago I left my dream apartment for what should have been a dream City for a new job. I quit that job 15 months later because of ethical issues with the vice president of the company. I did some temporary work until my father passed away and I’ve been working on his stuff pretty much off and on ever since and decided to retire. I’m moving back to the exact same dream apartment I moved out of and away from the Dream City that really actually sucked. So packing it sort of a hobby over the last two years. And unpacking. Hopefully until I can no longer take care of myself I will never move again. Of course I said that before but I should have enough money to be comfortable for the remainder of my existence on this Earth.
For me, it’s probably easier to ask what *isn’t * (or hasn’t been) my hobby.
I hoard so many craft supplies that when Michael’s runs out of something, they call me first. 
Currently, I do leather working. I love it. I started out not wanting to pay $100 for a Traveler’s notebook because it’s literally a rectangle of leather and stretchy cord. “I can easily make that for far, far less”, I said to my naive self.
And generally not much time to practice unfortunately. Someday, right? 
And now…here I sit…with at least 40 sides of leather, multiple tools, hardware and supplies (to the tune of at least 5-7k) in my basement.
But leather is just the latest of a looooooong history of crafting/hobby obsessions, lol! All of which I either still dabble in, or plan to do when my kids are done school and out of the house. I need a bigger house though…
Some, but not all, of those hobbies include doing cakes, decorative painting, wool felting, painting dolls (semi expensive), and amateur photography (very expensive!
).
My husband can’t complain about all of my crap because his hobby is cars and restoring old Mustangs. In the department of ‘hobby stuff in every corner’, we are a perfect match!!
A few pics of me what ADD looks like in hyper-focus craft form.
@k4evryng Your leather stuff is amazing!
@k4evryng @sammydog01 used to do a little bit of leather work back when I did sca. For a while we had a side business that where we made combat sorts. And you do all the fine leather work for the handles cuz we made them look nice not just Rattan and duct tape which is what they used back then. Ours were very popular and we charged a lot of money for them and we got paid for it and custom leather handles the whole thing. And I’ll go back to the needlework because it was easier